Since you live Down Under, @4peace, I am unable to use one of my favorite little ditties -- "Can't? What are you, an AmeriCAN or an AmeriCANT?"
But you get the point. Of course you can. You don't want to. You would prefer not to. You wish it wouldn't come to this. You fear doing so.
All perfectly understandable. But, in fact, you can.
And, at some point, you might have to. It's well to just start getting used to that idea now. But you're not at that point yet.
But my relationship is making me literaly sick and I see I need to and can do alot more.
And this is why you're not at that point yet. You already know what you have to do. So. Why aren't you doing it? What you can't do is just mope 'n' hope. As I am fond of saying, @4peace, hope is not a plan.
changed in the last few years that could be a mlc teamed with just being stressed an fed up with fighting
Yes, yes it could be.
Or he could be gay.
Or he could be having an affair.
Or he could be a secret alcoholic.
Or he could just be looking at middle age and be wondering, as David Byrne once asked, "Well, how did I get here?"
Or he could have won the Lotto Strike in New South Wales and simply hates the idea of sharing the money.
Or he could be writing the Great Australian Novel and be resentful of the interruptions of his work.
Or be realizing that his true life's ambition is to become a pommy member of the House of Lords and return to the ancestral Albion.
Or be addicted to porn.
Or be going through male menopause.
Or, or, or, or, or, or, or any combination of the above.
Or all of them.
Or none of them.
It doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because whatever "it" is, you have no control over it. No influence over it. I know that you desperately want to know, desperately want to understand -- we all do -- because you think that if only you "knew what it was" you could "fix" it.
No. Only HE can fix what ails him.
The limits of your fixit skills are the tips of your toes and the tips of your fingers. In other words, you CAN fix YOU. Let the rest of the chips fall where they may. And, in fact, you CAN fix YOU because you've already started doing so just by posting your story and evaluating your own situation.
plus I have been sick and spent alot of time and money on tests and doctors and medication and that annoyed him and cause alot of fights and tenion.
With respect to the first part, that's an obvious source of tension and conflict. And there's not much you can do about that, except be open, talk about it as a source of stress, ask him what his evaluations are, etc.
With respect to the second part, why would you being sick "annoy" him? Sounds to me like he has some Work of his own to do. "Better or worse, sickness and health" -- ding-ding-ding! Ring a bell to him?
I am needy and cant/dont get out much so if he is not giving me attention I can hound him until it ends up in a fight where he pulls away for days and I push more.
Now we're getting somewhere. You have the beginnings of a plan here, my friend.
"I am needy." Why? Look inside yourself. What are you searching for that you "need" that you haven't had? And why do you assume that He Himself is the one to satisfy that need?
You've been assuming that He Himself was satisfying that need -- but was he? And I mean that in 2 ways -- literally, was he satisfying your need and more philosophically might it not be the case that you yourself have been satisfying that need, but projecting the source of satisfaction onto H? In other words, not giving yourself the credit you deserve?
Plan-wise, you need to understand that need and its sources, so that you can find alternate means of addressing it.
"cant/dont get out much." Well which is it? "Can't?" Perhaps for medical/physical reasons? Or "don't" -- which is an entirely different thing? The distinction matters in lots of important ways, so it would be helpful if we had more clarity here.
"I can hound him until it ends up in a fight." This is an eminently 180-able thing to stop doing. Stop hounding him. Don't tell him you're going to stop. Just. Stop.
"and I push." Again. Just. Stop. Pushing is what my 10-year-old son does. He has convinced himself that megative attention is better than no attention, even though he hates negative attention, and even though I hate giving him negative attention. But negative attention motivates only avoidance.
Let me give you an example: When I was in Iraq I had an opportunity to sit down to a "meal" (I use the term loosely -- anything that comes out of a hermetically sealed plastic bag can only vaguely be described as "food") with some Diggers, and we were doing what soldiers do, which is swap stories of the Sergeants we've loved to hate over the years.
What do you think we learned about each other, though we lived on opposite sides of the globe? The physical training sergeant who made my life such a joy in Missouri in 1983 -- and who even then had been in the army since the Lord Jesus himself was a mere Corporal -- was apparently the exact same physical training instructor who was tormenting Digger Jim in 2000 at Blamey Barracks.
His method, his joy, his True Love, was the infliction of pain in the name of physical readiness for battle ("you'll thank me for this one day"). And we all agreed -- the one thing it taught us was how to avoid running into him at all costs.
So what are you teaching your Husband? To avoid running into you at all costs, because what he associates with you is unpleasant -- it's literally painful to him.
Now, then -- riddle me this: How is that strategy going to help you?
Also I would like to know other db experiences on when you are db-ing but so upset and angry even in the calm times your spouse irritates you and you feel incompatible.
Allow me to suggest that DB'ing is not about "feelings." It's about doings.
Go ahead, feel incompatible. Or decompatible. Or noncompatible. Feel anything you like.
But don't act on those feelings.
That's what the "as-if" formula is all about.
As you read other threads here you'll see that we all get irritated at our Walkaways and future Walkaways and Half-Walkaways. Of course they're irritating -- look how weird they are!
But that's neither here nor there. As is so often said about the process outlined in The Divorce Remedy (the better of the 2 books), it's all about YOU.
The logic is simple. You are no longer desirable to him. (Sorry, but you have to cut to the bone.) At one time you were desirable to him. Therefore something has changed. While it is possible that the changed something is all one-sided (i.e., him), it's not very likely. So assess, evaluate, and start recovering the You you were when you were You, and he was falling for You.
But that doesn't mean that he'll "fall" for you again. It does mean, however, that you'll have squared yourself away. And that's where the whole thing has to start.
